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swedish american encounters Sometime near one this morning, rain fell for the first time in weeks or at least that is what I was told happened. Since I was at work at that time, I didn't have a chance to look out a window, nor was I able to hear anything where I sit in the building. From most of the stories that I heard, it was the kind of storm with thunder that shakes people out of their sleep. It would have been nice to have seen and or heard just a small part of that excitement since I can't remember the last time that we had a good summer thunderstorm here. Maybe I'll get another chance before the season ends. ... Today was so calm compared to the first part of the week and I truly enjoyed every moment of it. This morning after I got home from work, I didn't have to power nap and then hurry off to class. For the first time in days, I could actually sleep for more than three hours in a row. That might sound like a little thing, but it was enough to make my day. I needed something to balance out the rest of the week. My body can only take so much abuse. ... Without having to rush anywhere this morning, I could think about my latest master plan as I like to call it. If all goes well I might be able to walk away from my job as early as June next year. All that I have to do is complete twenty one credits and I'll be done with the program and able to get a job somewhere outside of the country. Now obviously this isn't something that I decided to do overnight. In fact the idea didn't really come to me until just a few months ago. As I've said so many times before, my life has taken a few odd turns over the years and for the most part I try to go with the flow. The best example would be how every few years my job path has taken me into a slightly new direction in the information technology field and I just dealt with the new perspective. Now after having had three different jobs dealing with technology in some aspect or another, I am slowly starting to think that maybe I shouldn't be in it anymore. There are aspects of technology jobs that I like with money being one of the biggest, but at the same time the idea of having to spend the next thirty years of my life trapped inside a windowless room staring at computer screens is losing its appeal. I want something else from life. I don't want to experience different parts of the world through just a couple of vacations a year. One would think that I would have figured this out years ago, but I don't think that I really knew what I wanted from life say ten years ago when I was an undergraduate in college. Telling someone that they need to decide what they want to do for the rest of their life at that point in time isn't really helpful. As obvious as it might sound a person has to try some things in order to fully understand them. Maybe I was more naive than other people at that time, but I had no idea what to expect from the business world. I guess that I just don't want to spend the next thirty to forty years of my life complaining or wondering if there was something else that I could have done differently with my time here. Then there is the feeling that I'm not meant to have a traditional job. That kind of life just doesn't suit my personality. For me this isn't adolescent wanderlust or rash thinking. I've thought about the different possibilities of what can happen. This idea isn't coming from my twenty one year old self, nor am I shirking responsibility. At the grand age of thirty two, I have a mortgage, car payments, credit card bills and so on. I fully understand the ways of the modern adult world. I also know that things come at a cost and that not every single moment of life is a party, but at the same time I want to make my life better. The way that I see it, if I fail somehow with a job outside of the country, I can always come back home and try something else. Plus there is the option of going back to what I do now, but somewhere else. ... Two months ago at this time I was sleeping on a Swedish train going to Malmo. I had boarded the train in Berlin a little before midnight. There had been some confusion when we first got into the compartments. Each one holds six people and there were already four people milling around when we stepped into the car. Then we had the following conversation: Young Swedish Guy: "Hello. We are what you call group. Group?" (as he motions to his friends and I nod that I understand and wait for him to continue) "Would you like to switch?" He then leads us out of the car and points down the hallway of the train. "Do you see pretty girl coming out of car?" (I nod yes) "She is where you will be staying. Not with her though. She is with us." This is followed by polite if not slightly nervous laughter. The idea seemed harmless enough and who was I to interfere with Swedish American relationships, so I moved my pack into the new car and found that I would be sleeping with a Chinese family of three. At least I think that it was a father and mother with their teenage if not twenty something daughter. Only the father and daughter spoke to us so I never did get the exact family dynamic. Hours later I woke and could tell the the train was still moving, but that the sensation had changed slightly. So I slipped on my shoes and made my way out into the hallway. Once I was there it felt as though I had entered into an X-Files episode. Outside the windows of the train a white room with pipes could be seen. The outside world was gone and all that I could see was the interior of some room. While I was sleeping the train had boarded a ferry of some sort and we were now on the Baltic Sea. The click of the tracks had been replaced by the ebb of the sea. It was a very odd moment in time for me and my sleep addled brain tried its best to make sense of it. ... Maybe an hour or so later that morning I made my way to the bathroom at the end of the car and closed the door to the tiny room. Now I swear that I locked it, but I must not have, because as I was standing there in mid-stream the door suddenly opened. Pushing the door open was a young blonde Swedish woman who I had seen the night before when everyone boarded. She was cute, but I think that I would have preferred to speak with her under better conditions. Then in what I hope was one smooth motion, I reached to close the door on her without seeming too hostile. She seemed to take it in stride. Naturally we avoided any long term eye contact as I exited. Yes, indeed, those were my very first two encounters with the Swedes. Somehow those kinds of events never seem to happen to Rick Steves, but that doesn't matter to me. I'll remember both of them until the day that I die. I want more of that kind of life.
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